Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

I think that the negativity here is unfortunate. The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Elon and friends have invested here. And don’t let anyone fool you - this is the fundamental reason the BCI field has moved slowly.

If Neuralink proceeds to a scenario where quadriplegic patients can get reliable (ie lifelong) control of their computers for less than $100k that will be a huge win for them for a cost that no one else was willing to pay.

To be clear, at that order of magnitude they might make back their investment, but it won’t be 10x or 100x, and the potential healthy-brain-connected-to-the-AI play is much less rooted in reality than Teslas all becoming taxis.

Worst case scenario is that Elon loses interest and pulls the plug and Mr Arbaugh loses continued tech support a la a google product. I think that’s the one question I wish the author had asked…

From a capitalist point of view, Neuralink will only become profitable and valuable if they go full sci-fi and offer a brain/computer interface that anyone can use, AND that there's systems and applications that use it, AND that it becomes popular and "better" than e.g. smartphones.

But that last one is the kicker. AR never became mainstream. Unless a brain interface is faster and more intuitive than e.g. a physical keyboard, it will never become mainstream either.

AR will become mainstream with time. It's a question of UX which has very heavy investment behind it.